Pandering to Millennials Will Ruin the GOP

Policymic ^ | March 15, 2012 | Rush Limbaugh

[Bratch]

Editor's Note: Rush Limbaugh's article was written in response to PolicyMic Pundit Alex Smith, National Chairman of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC). In her op-ed, "Millennials Are a Tremendous Opportunity for the Republican Party," she calls on millennials to fight to re-invent the Republican Party to represent young people.

I'm a baby boomer, so I'm allowed to begin this by talking about myself. I have only one request and that is before you read this, please put out of your mind everything you have heard about me in the media, everything you think you know about me, and just read this self-contained for what it is. In order to absorb this in total objectivity, try to imagine that you have no idea who wrote it. And for those who post comments, likewise: respond to the content alone, devoid of all emotionally-based bias you might have towards me. (For those of you who don't know who I am, you are ahead of the game for this exercise. Congratulations.)

As I said, I'm a baby boomer but I don't think of myself that way very often, and when I do, I'm mostly embarrassed. My generation is a self-absorbed bunch who never really had to grow up. We had it SO MUCH EASIER than our parents and grandparents! Heck, we had to invent our own traumas to convince ourselves we were struggling.

On the other hand, my parents struggled through the Great Depression, my dad fought in World War II (he flew the P-51 Mustang, China/Burma Theater), and then had to work and raise a family under threats by the Soviet Union to destroy America — threats which WERE taken seriously by everyone. The Soviets were serious, they meant it. The point is that my parents knew when they were 18 that life was bigger and about much more than themselves. When they were 40, their lives were set. That was it, they were done; they had fought their battles. They didn't ponder getting rich, maximizing opportunity, etc. They were worn out, totally focused on trying to make my life better than theirs.

I've had it so comparatively easy that I'm 62 and still feel 18 some days; I feel like I am going to live another 70 years. I didn't have to grow up nearly as fast as my parents did. And I'm nowhere finished growing, nowhere near stopping, retiring, and letting you take over. But that doesn't mean you aren't going to try. And you should, by all means.

I understand the desire and need for people of younger generations to be heard and acknowledged. I totally get that. But the truth is that it is up to you to be heard, up to you to get noticed, up to you to stand out. You are not entitled to be respected just because of your age. The only exception is the Seasoned Citizen population, which is the greatest collection of wisdom in the country (I don't expect you to believe that). You can demand to be respected, recognized, and listened to all day long, but understand that no one has any obligation to listen to you. You are going to have to make them want to ...  by virtue of your achievements. By demonstrating potential. By being interesting. Yes, even by being provocative. Fearless. Everyone has the right to speak, but we do not have a right to be listened to. No one has a constitutional right to be heard. In other words, don't sit around and wait and hope or demand that somebody listen to you. Take action. Be heard, but above all, make something happen.

The Republican Party right now is scared. It doesn't know what it wants to be, nor does it know what it should be. It has lost its confidence and too many in the party think they have to become more moderate, or more like Democrats, in order to be liked and popular. Well, here is an undeniable truth for you: The pursuit of being liked can be the greatest prison you ever put yourself into, because you will be afraid to be who you really are. You will be trying to assess what everyone wants you to be, and you'll end up thinking that who you are isn't good enough. I know it is hard because we are all raised wanting to be loved. Many people compromise their core beliefs in pursuit of it. But once you know what you believe, once you have established your core, stick with it. Then make your move on the Republican Party, which is ripe for you to define it.

I think a political party that reaches out to groups and demographics with ideas that lack cohesion is a party destined to lose because it will fragment. A party has to be about a universal set of principles and ideas that attract all kinds of people from all walks of life. All ages, all genders, all orientations. It has been done recently. Ronald Reagan won two  landslide elections in 1980 and 1984. You can tailor your message for individual groups, but not your principles.

At the same time, you must be honest with yourselves and understand exactly what it is the Democratic Party seeks to do. If you are serious about all this, you must resolve that the Democratic Party is to be defeated, not compromised with. You rightly note the challenges you face: Rising stifling debt. Rising unemployment. Rising deficits. No economic growth. The state is getting bigger and the private sector, where you work, is getting smaller. Not cool. And many of you probably would say that the Republican Party contributed in part to all of this, and you would be right.

But one simple fact remains, and that is that the ideas and policies that led to this mess are rooted in the left ... the Democratic Party.

You, through no fault of your own, are in the midst of an ideological war in America today. It is not just a battle between two parties. Principles, ideas, and philosophy are being fought over. Many people are uncomfortable hearing this and facing it. But you must if you want to grow and live in the America you've always believed in. Because it won't exist as founded for very much longer if these battles are lost. And this is up to you because you are the unfortunate heirs of this disaster. You have lots of allies among us who are your elders, and we are eager and hopeful you will join us. Because these battles are being undertaken for you and your future. And your kids.

[Bratch]

"The pursuit of being liked can be the greatest prison you ever put yourself into, because you will be afraid to be who you really are."

[Salvey]

What Albert Ellis called the root of all neurosis.

[muawiyah]

There’s nothing wrong in reaching out to organized groups that can be potential political partners ~ but reaching out to their sex organs or stomachs isn’t going to give you stability ~ takes much more than that.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

St Paul said, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers.” This is not really a war that is merely political. It’s a cosmic war being fought in the heavenlies that we can’t see and most are unaware of.
Its almost like those DC comic heros between the forces of light and darkness of Batman vs some evil genius.
On one side is God and good and on the other is some dark sinister force led by godless demonic forces.
The question is not whose side of this struggle we are in is God on. The question is are we going to be on God’s side.
I will give a hint: His Book forbids, gay marriage, abortion, lawlessness and many of policies in the platform of the democratic party.
Even the founding fathers said if you took God out of the great equation of liberty we would be doomed.
We are in that process- I hope we make the right choices
Freegards
LEX

[SoFloFreeper]

Good article.....something FREEPERS can learn is this:

“You can tailor your message for individual groups, but not your principles.”

Too often we here on FR accuse people of being RINOs when they are merely trying to broaden our MESSAGE to other demographics.

[Bratch]

Its almost like those DC comic heros between the forces of light and darkness of Batman vs some evil genius.

---

Following the destruction of Metropolis and the deaths of his wife Lois Lane, their unborn child, and his best friend Jimmy Olsen, all at the hands of the Joker, Superman establishes a new world order, causing heroes to stand in opposition to each other. A battle ensues between the forces of Superman's regime and those allied with Batman's rebellion.^[12]

---

[dforest]

Long ago conservative author Taylor Caldwell said that the government can always get control of people because people tend to think mostly about their “bellies and their genitals”.

She was exactly right about that. Proof is what we see now and during the 2012 election.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

A lot of people tend to think mostly about their bellies and other peoples genitals.

[dforest]

Sandra Fluke, great liberal philosopher. LOL

[rarestia]

Lex, I think your post is spot on. I would like to provide an analogy that I believe to be wholly in line with your post and thoughts, and I believe it signifies the problem that Republicans are having as a party.

Many corporations across America are without serious internal development teams and go looking for bids on turnkey applications that suitably satisfy a need for the organization. In the IT world, one good example is problem and change management. There are hundreds of tools out there, some very affordable for small business and others so expensive as to be useful only to the largest of corporations. Most corporations, after serious consideration, settle on a tool, pay the vendor to help set it up, and they’re on their way. Inevitably, however, needs change, some solutions are no longer useful, parts of the purchased programs become cumbersome or go unused otherwise. When this happens, it’s often the case that these corporations either go looking for another piece of software to fit the new need or they go back to the original vendor for help to modify the program they purchased to work for them.

What tends to happen at this point is almost universal: you get what’s called “stovepiping.” With stovepiping, you make fundamental changes to either the core programming functionality of the original application OR you allow minor tweaks and changes via third-party software to interface with that original application. What you wind up with is either a transformed original application, sometimes functional, oftentimes broken in some other way, as is the case with the former; or you get a core application with so many externally interfacing programs that when stops working or doesn’t work as intended or known to work previously that it becomes a Medusa-head of confusion and disconnects.

The Republican party is sufferings from “stovepiping” in a very real way. The core of Republican ideology is Constitutional Conservatism. We believe in the core beliefs ensconced in our founding documents. We believe in Judeo-Christian ethic that guides our morality and our daily life. We believe in the strength of the individual and the ability for any man or any woman to become the best engineer, doctor, lawyer, nurse, father, mother, or laborer they possibly can be through sheer power of will and a want to be the best at something.

By compromising on these principles, we are essentially creating “interfaces” with groups outside of our core that may affect us positively or negatively, but merely by making that interface happen, we are creating an avenue to fundamentally change the core values by which we all abide; and we now find ourselves at a point where, as a party, we are so fractured, so disconnected from our roots, that we have become that Medusa-head of confusion and disconnect, and our roots and core values mean less than they ever have in lieu of maintaining that communicative interface with disparate groups.

The “fix” for “stovepiping” is a change of the core methodology to prohibit changes to the very roots of the programming, the “kernel” if you will, but open up the program to everyone to make of it what you will. A good analogy, in my opinion, is Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Up through the Windows XP desktop operating system, third-party applications were permitted to make changes to the “kernel” of the operating system at-will and with little more than a click of the “Okay” button during an installation. This led to myriad security holes, bugs, and the ubiquitous flood of monthly “patches” to ensure the operating system’s fidelity. In the end, those “patches” either reduced the functionality of an installed third-party program, the “interfacer,” or closed off a portion of the operating system “kernel” to future use to other third-party programs.

With the advent of Windows Vista came the introduction of a brand-new operating system “kernel” that made it so that third-party programs could not change the core structure of the operating system and had to function within the designed parameters of the interface layer around that “kernel.” As such, the core structure of the Windows operating system became, for lack of a better term, untouchable, thus maintaining the fidelity of the core and leading to a relatively better secured operating system overall.

The Republican party’s “kernel” has been nibbled at and chewed away by special interests and pork barrel spending. Promises of largesse to constituencies and favorable legislation has taken us into an environment of very tenuous connections to our roots and an environment of vitriol between men and women who claim to be playing for the same team. It is only through the acknowledgement of our core principles, a strident adherence to God, family, country, and culture, that we will be able to reclaim this nation and our political party for the original intent of our genius founders and their ideas enshrined in our nation’s founding documents.

The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights: these are our “kernel.” These are the unyielding, undying, unassailable tenets upon which all great things in our nation rest. We cannot “plug in” new interfaces to these core tenets. They must remain unchanged and that needs to be communicated across our party platform. New “interfaces” can occur, but they must work within the parameters of our “kernel,” or we must flush them out as a virus or malware as would any well-designed operating system. We need “anti-virus” politicians. The “virus” is liberalism.

[Bigg Red]

Re the title:
Pandering...Will Ruin the GOP

IMO, it is already ruined. We need a third party to replace it.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Eggs zactly! You hit the nail on the head!
Freegards
LEX

[G Larry]

Life is NOT middle school!!!

Our RESPONSIBILITY is to TEACH TRUTH!

Pretend there are no consequences and we will reap destruction.

[ansel12]

That is what the homosexual movement falsely claims.